Event organizing is a business proposition as any other. Event organisers could be a division of an advertising agency/media house or a professional event organizing company or a team of people within the organization given the responsibility for carrying out the event.
For professional event organisers, event management and event marketing carry different connotations though most people in the events business call their companies event management companies.
In this book for consistency, we prefer to call these as event organizing companies. We have already demarcated the line of differentiation between event management and event marketing in the context of events and these are discussed in greater detail in this book later on.
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Any event requires a team. How an event-organizing team is structured and how the responsibilities are shared depend largely on two factors-the business definition or focus of the events company with regard to the key elements and the definition of clients and target audience.
This team may be comprised of people who are employees or family members or even freelancers. The team has to be fully involved with every aspect of the event. Just like advertising agencies, event organisers are now coming into their own.
With the advent of professional event organisers and the corporatization of the events industry, a new breed of communication professional that of the event professional has taken root in the industry. The need for event organisers is increasing day by day mainly because of the four reasons listed below:
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1. The events business requires physical presence of various professionals and running around is a routine affair in this field. The clients’ employees may not appreciate such activities.
2. Dealing with the legal hassles such as permissions to be taken from government agencies requires a lot of patience and hard work.
3. Networking with media, facility providers and suppliers is energy sapping work to say the least. This requires full time involvement from the organisers and time may be a premium for the clients to invest in such activities.
4. The immense amount of experience and expertise in organizing specific events, that the clients may never have, also weighs heavily in favor of professional event organisers.
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To ensure a long term presence and growth, event organisers should keep the following points in mind while formulating their strategy.
Targeting Clients:
The concept of clients for an event organiser comprises of a broad spectrum of entities. These entities range from individuals to corporate clients. It is essential that the event organiser focus on particular clients, at least in the initial stages, that they would like to provide their services to.
Selecting Event Categories to Serve:
Event categories vary in the effort involved in organizing and at the same time they also differ in their curativeness. Because of the varied characteristics of each event category, selecting a right portfolio of event categories is a must.
It would help in developing the required expertise and creating a unique position in the minds of the prospective clients. Once established, it would be possible to diversify into other event categories.
Selecting and Contracting with Other Key Elements in Chosen Categories:
Just as targeting the right clients and choosing the particular event categories to serve is important, it is equally important that the right mix of other key elements is not only decided, but also contracted for availability and fixation of the rates well in advance.
Every event organiser should seriously focus on talent management since it is the artist, the sportsperson, the participant, or the performer who provides a face to the event and forms the core around which the concept revolves.
It is therefore essential that the event organiser should build long term relations with the other key elements. A definiteness and purposefulness comes to the planning of the events once the entire portfolio comprising of the key elements is planned out.
Marketing Intelligence and Information Systems:
Market research is necessary for a detailed survey on the target audience profile. The profile is required for pricing decisions for the event in itself as well as timing and pricing of tickets, if the event is a ticketed show.
Research personnel are also needed for gathering information on brands for enabling proactive marketing of event concepts. Every event organiser should create and regularly update a research library with a full time librarian handling records on a category basis for creation of a solid database on prospective clients’ brands, their target audience and other key elements.
An information system going beyond just a database and incorporating a continuously updated website for providing instant access to proposals and concepts to clients as well as exposure to the company would be an asset to any event organiser.